Monday, May 7, 2007

Lugo Demoted -- Orvella to take his Spot


The Rays have finally ended our suffering by demoting Lugo to AAA and calling up Chad Orvella. Lugo was surprised as he is coming off of two great outings, but those two outings were not enough to save him from what has been a dismal season so far. In 11 appearances Lugo was sporting a hefty 9.28 ERA while walking 13 and striking out 8. Lugo is not the only problem in the pen, but this will definitely help the Rays out late in games. Orvella struggled when he first went back down to Durham, which in my opinion it had to do with being demoted after having the best spring of Rays reliever. Since the first couple of games Orvella has turned it around and dominated in Durham. In his last 10 games he has pitched 14.1 innings with an ERA of .63. Orvella has struck out 19 batters and walked 6 in that time period and batters are hitting .143 on him for he season in Durham. I was surprised that Orvella was sent down after Spring Training and i am glad to see him back up in the pen. The Rays are competing right now and they need to give Reyes and the starters some help and this will definitely do that. I hope the Rays make a couple more moves involving the pen, but this is definitely a good start.

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